Nexus 6P – Just how good is the camera? – Camera Samples

The Nexus 6P is the first Nexus phone to have a decent camera. The camera has large pixels, 1.55 microns but does omit optical image stabilisation. Google commented that OIS was not required with such large pixels.

Whilst in my testing, the lack of optical image stabilisation has not been an issue for many of the shots, I do believe it would make a difference still especially in low light. I also believe the software could be further enhanced over time to make the camera a fair bit better all round.

Anyway, some random shots from the Nexus 6P.

Photo 1 – Plenty of fog, but a good shot despite the conditions.

Photo 2 – The Famous Church Shot – A very good shot

Photo 3 – Olives and More – Good detail

Photo 4 – Tesco Tavistock – A really grim day but good definition on the sign

Photo 5 – Leaves – a reasonable amount of bokeh

Photo 6 – Cheese – Again lots of detail

Photo 7 – Tesco – Zooming in on the Tesco sign reveals good detail again

Just some background when taking these photos. I took these all hand held and as fast as possible. Overall, I like the quality of the Nexus 6P photos. However, HDR+ takes too long to save photos and the battery life gets zapped when taking photos.

8 thoughts on “Nexus 6P – Just how good is the camera? – Camera Samples”

Probably not connected but I found that my battery life was appalling when taking pics with the S6. I would take a couple of shots and it would drop by 10-15% per hour for the next hour or so. GSAM battery monitor revealed that it was Google Play Services which, as many Android users know, covers a lot of things and is notoriously hard to pin down. Turns out it was Google Photos. Even though it was set to upload photos only when on wifi and plugged in it was still doing something in the background. So I turned off backup and sync completely and battery returned to normal. Frustrating because you’d expect Google’s own apps to work properly.

Myself, I’ve never seen a particular battery drain caused by background Photos upload…not in any of the phones I’ve used, over the past year. In fact, Play Services is waaaay down the list, every time I’ve checked.

To be fair, in your case (a) perhaps this was a figment of camera usage — I average no more than 10 pics, per week — or (b) of the device, itself. My list of recently used devices doesn’t include the Samsung Galaxy S6.
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Hi Gavin. I did a controlled experiment to test your idea about weak signal strength.
1. Turned on Google Photos app sync. Took a couple of shots and left phone for a while. Phone was warm and battery had drained a lot.
2. Turned off Photos app sync. Turned on Dropbox camera upload. Took a few shots and left phone for a while. Photos uploaded fine. Phone was cool and battery drain was normal.
That seems to confirm problem with Photos app. Maybe Samsung have messed it up on their side. Who knows? Whatever the cause I’m just going to leave sync off for now and will revisit issue once Marshmallow is out.